In the past, various approaches have been taken of acquiring a target from one vehicle and attacking the target from a separate vehicle utilizing a missile. In these systems, it has not been possible to acquire a specific target desired to be destroyed and cause a missile to be placed directly on or guided directly to the target desired to be destroyed in a simple and yet accurate manner.
Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide a system and method by which a target can be acquired at one location, data transmitted to a second location and then cause a missile to be trained and locked on the selected target.
Another object of this invention is to provide a system in which the vehicles can be camouflaged from the target and therefore be in a position from which they can be protected.
A further object of this invention is to provide a system that uses an automatic target handoff correlator that compares a reference target video to missile seeker video to insure that the missile is trained on the selected target.
Another object of this invention is to provide a system that is or can be automatic and a system that requires a minimum of personnel to operate.
Further objects and advantages of this invention will be obvious to those skilled in this art.
In accordance with this invention, a missile system and method of operating the missile system is disclosed in which a reconnaissance vehicle is used to acquire a target and to identify the target with a video camera with the target being centered in the field of view of the reconnaissance vehicle video information as well as the heading of the is reconnaissance vehicle and video camera information being transmitted to a launching vehicle through a radio frequency link to provide video reference information on the selected target to an automatic target handoff correlator and to provide the heading information of the target to a missile control computer at a launching vehicle. The launch vehicle control computer utilizes the heading data from the reconnaissance vehicle and map coordinates of its own location and provides signals for orienting missiles thereon to look in the general direction of the selected target. Each missile has a video seeker thereon that looks at the target area and provides xe2x80x9clivexe2x80x9d video signals to the automatic target handoff correlator which compares this xe2x80x9clivexe2x80x9d scene with the reference video information and picks the target out. The automatic target handoff correlator then sends signals to the video seeker of the missile to cause the seeker to be adjusted to place the target in the center of the field of view of the video seeker. When this is accomplished, the automatic target handoff correlator commands a missile autotracker on the missile to lock on to the target and the command control computer fires or causes firing of the missile and the missile is maintained on course by the missile autotracker to impact.